Another Option
by July Storms
Summary: "I don't think we're going to be able to have children," she whispers. (Levihan.)


**Another Option**

**Prompt**: "Hange and Levi debate on adopting a child. Depending on how it ends, they get either a child or a pet." (Requested by Anonymous.)

**Notes**: I took some artistic freedom with this prompt. Adoption is a huge weakness of mine. It gives me many feels. This story assumes that somehow, titans were eradicated.

* * *

She feels it in the middle of the night, a searing pain in her belly. It sends her out of bed, feeling the nightstand for her glasses. She can't find them in the dark, and resigns herself to getting out of bed without them. She grabs what she needs from the bureau and heads to the latrine.

Levi sits up when she's at the door, mumbling, "Hange? What is it?" like he thinks something's wrong.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," she tells him, and smiles even though she knows he can't see it.

She's gone longer than a few minutes. Her stomach cramps again and she stops in the kitchen to wait for the pain to pass, brushing her hair back from her face. She lights a candle and takes it with her outside. The walk isn't long, and the night air is cool; she can feel it through the thin fabric of her nightgown.

It only takes a moment to check: blood, spotted on the inside of her underwear. She hates that the sight makes her chest tighten, and has to put the candle down because her hands start to shake.

The titans had been gone for _four years_, and she had been hoping that, in that time…

Well, it's not worth crying over; it never is, Hange reminds herself. She can't cry at every little thing that she can't change, that she can't _help_. Maybe it's not even _her_ that's the problem.

She stays in the privy almost a half-hour, mostly to pull herself together. She can deal with the pain of cramps; they're far better than the pain of a titan's teeth in her leg, after all. It's harder to deal with the fact that she's not pregnant.

She's not regular, and this time, almost three months had passed since her last cycle; she's gotten her hopes up before only to have them crash down around her, but for some reason, this time hurts the most. Four years, not even one pregnancy, and not for lack of trying.

She takes care of herself, changes her underwear, fixes them up so she won't leak during the night, and heads back to the house. She leaves the candle in the kitchen and almost trips up the stairs on the way to bed.

She's pulling the blankets up when Levi turns over to face her.

"If you needed your shitty glasses to see, you should have looked harder."

"I can see fine without them."

"No you can't."

"Well enough to take a shit."

He's silent for a long time before he says, turning onto his back, "You weren't taking a shit."

"No," she agrees, turning her head. "I wasn't." There's enough light coming in through the window that she can see that his eyes are closed, and there's that wrinkle in his nose that appears when he's feeling stressed or upset.

He doesn't say anything. He waits for her to speak, waits for her to spit it out, and for once he doesn't rush her. He just lies there, facing the ceiling and not seeing a damn thing.

"There's no baby," she tells him, whispers it.

Levi takes a deep breath, lets it out so quietly she almost doesn't hear it. "You okay?" he asks. His usual flat sarcasm is gone.

"Do I have a choice?"

"Yes."

She doesn't, really. She can be not-okay, but then what? She can't live the rest of her life like that, can she? She doesn't want to. She _wants_ it to be okay. "It's not like I can change anything," she tells him.

He opens his eyes again, but still stares above him at the low rafters of their bedroom ceiling. "If you wanna clean up shit that much, I'll go find you a dog. I'm sure it'll give you lots of shit to clean up."

She doesn't know if she's supposed to laugh or not; she doesn't know if she thinks it's _funny_ or not. She finds his hand under the blankets and slides her fingers between his, holds on. He's probably trying to lighten the tension. She's glad he's willing to try, at least. Four years of this and she's not sure if she's supposed to be mad at herself or him or at life or what.

"I don't think we're going to be able to have children," she whispers.

"Does that bother you?"

"A little." She's not sure _why_, though. Is it because she can't do the one thing her gender is supposed to be able to do: bring life into the world? Or is it because she really wants to hear children in the house?

She put her life on hold for titans and she never thought they would ever end; now that they've been eliminated—she hopes—permanently, she's not quite sure what to do with herself. Kids sound nice—kids in the modest house she shares with Levi. Kids that will call them Mum and Dad, that she can teach to write and he can teach to clean… It sounds nice.

"Maybe I'm too old," she suggests off-handedly.

"Lots of women have children in their 30s."

"That's true." She still wonders, though. Or maybe she'd taken one too many hits from a titan, or one too many falls with her 3DMG. She supposes she'll never know.

Levi is quiet for such a long time that she thinks, at first, that he's asleep. But he turns toward her again and squeezes her hand. "If you really want to fill this place with brats, there are plenty of them without parents out there."

She swallows hard, wonders if he's thinking about his own childhood spent in the slums trying not to die, getting excited over finding a half-moldy roll in the garbage or a blanket that probably has fleas. "Yeah," she agrees, and meets him halfway, tries to kiss the wrinkle away from the bridge of his nose. "Older kids would be nice."

"Quieter," he says. "Less likely to piss their beds; no diapers to clean, either."

"No crying all night."

"Exactly."

"Maybe we could find a pair of siblings or something."

"Think about it," he tells her. "Make sure it's what you want."

She wants to cry but she can't figure out why. Maybe it's because he thinks taking in someone else's kid is just as good as having his own, and she finds it touching in a really wonderful way. He's always cared more about other people than he let on, but this is nice. "You'd be a weird dad," she says, and smiles, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug. "Weird but good."

"You're delusional. I think the blood loss is getting to you." But he kisses her anyway: short and soft.

"Thanks, Levi." She runs her free hand through his hair and brushes her fingers along the nape of his neck where it's short and bristly.

"Good night," he says, and rolls onto his back again.

"'Night," is her response, but it takes her a while to fall asleep. She wonders what kinds of kids they might find in need of a home: what their names are, what they look like, what they enjoy doing. Do they already know how to read and write? Will they enjoy reading? Gardening? Pretty dresses or overalls or nice trousers?

She slings one arm around Levi and presses her lips to the corner of his mouth. "Hey," she whispers.

"Hm?"

"How many can we bring back with us?"

"_Hange_," he practically groans.

"Sorry. I was just thinking, though, that—"

Levi claps his hand over her mouth and leans down to kiss her forehead. It's sloppy because he's sleepy, and it makes her smile. "Tomorrow," he tells her. "At a normal fucking time."

"Okay," she whispers, and tries to contain her excitement until the sun is completely above the horizon.


End file.
